Im not sure either of these will make it. They both have huge deficiencies in the fair distribution department. The situation reminds me of Bytecoin with it's innovative technology appearing on the screen but 83% already mined and concentrated in the hands of only a select few. Monero simply had to clone it with a fair launch and became CryptoNight chain #1 overnight.
A successful 2.0 coin should embrace that lesson and implement a fairer distribution model to keep gathering followers and remain fair among its competitors.
There's no such thing as a truly fair distribution model.
When startup companies launch, when they have a stock IPO... do they attempt to distribute stock to people equally or do they distribute it based on who has the most interest in it and is therefore willing to pay the most time and money for it?
Trust me, your concern was the same as mine for a month or so. But it dawned on me that this isn't some AsiaCoin or ShibeCoin that was created with the word "scam" in the subconscious of its devs. NXT was meant to be a lasting movement. And if you haven't noticed, the price action of late confirms I'm not alone in my beliefs.
Auroracoin showed how it can be done, although they ultimately failed for a couple of reasons, the concept is good. Maybe in a decade from now a similar thing will be done with a Bitcoin successor, who knows.
I'm not convinced that even if you gave every human in the world (or a country) "free" coins, the coin would succeed. Here is my post when Auroracoin was nearing $1bil marketcap:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=497736.0And we all know where Auroracoin is now. Regardless of any other problems Auroracoin had, the basic supply-and-demand economic principles apply. Additionally, people don't "hold" what they don't perceive as valuable, hence the huge dump. This means that with any "perfectly fair" distribution, the moment the currency is traded, the distribution is suddenly skewed to those who are: a) smarter and b) have the money to buy it up.
A coin cannot succeed on distribution alone (or community, if you want to call it that) - this has been proven again and again. There may be short-term hypes like dogecoin, but people eventually get bored if there is absolutely zero development.
I would like to hear your side of why you think *initial* distribution is all-important. What if initial distribution was not great, but now the distribution is better than Bitcoin (in the case of NXT)? Why does initial distribution matter anyways - other than jealousy? Is there any evidence that a a large initial distribution = long term success? (I cannot find any) Bitcoin and litecoin both have terrible distributions (worse than NXT), yet they are #1 and #2, respectively.
Pandaisftw